Glimpse
by Lacewood
Summary: A collection of vignettes and drabbles [misc characters, Yoh and Anna]
1. Photo

**Photo**   
For Sakura 

Manta took a photo of them once. 

He'd brought a camera with him to the onsen, one day during that long month before they left for the Shaman Fight. So that he'd have something to remember everyone by, even when they were gone, he'd explained. 

Yoh had blinked and shrugged, while Anna raised an eyebrow and sniffed, and he ended up, thanks to Ryu and Horohoro, using almost nine rolls of film, enough to fill a small mountain of albums. Flipping through them while he wondered how he'd managed to take so many photos of Horohoro making faces into the camera, he stopped. 

The picture wasn't much really, just the two of them sitting in the darkness of the front porch, Yoh grinning sheepishly while Anna glowered at him about something. 

Warily, half wondering if he'd get glared at by Anna, he gave it to Yoh, who'd looked surprised and then smiled slightly and said thank you. Manta didn't know what he was going to do with it, but then, he didn't know why _he'd_ given it to him either. 

Still, he wasn't quite surprised, visiting the too-quiet onsen a few days after Yoh and Horohoro and Ryu had left for the Shaman Fight, to find it sitting on the television set in a plain silver frame. 

Small things to remember them by. 

_end_


	2. Valentine

**Valentine**   
For Anze 

If you thought about it, soap operas were quite educational, really. Though maybe that depended on what you needed to be educated _about_. How To Be A Complete Twit 101, for example, Anna usually thought. 

But then _again_, Anna might not have learned about Valentine's Day otherwise. 

And now that it _had_ been brought to her disinterested attention, the television was determinedly making sure she _did not forget about it_. 

_Tokyo Love's Valentine Special! Will Anna Be Able to Tell Hiro Her True Feelings?!_

... And as if seeing her own name in that sentence hadn't been insult enough, bright pink hearts festoned the flashing words as bubbles rained down around them. 

Chin propped in hand, she watched impassively as "Anna" attempted to   
1) make chocolate (in the most incompetent way imaginable)   
2) give said chocolate to "Hiro" (again, imcompetently. Hiding under a desk not only looked silly, it quite oviously did not get the chocolate to its intended target)   
3) run away crying for no reason that Anna could see (if someone had given Yoh chocolate, Anna would have commended them on having _very_ discerning good taste. And then maybe made it very clear why their discerning good taste stopped there and looked somewhere else).   
And the list went on. _Really_, Anna didn't see what the fuss was about. 

Wisely, the show cut into the commercial break just then. So Anna found herself watching gushing advertisements about chocolates, flowers, chocolates, more flowers, and teddy bears instead. 

Love was in the air, indeed. Nothing else was going to explain the sudden urge to pay for overpriced flowers and chocolate that was supposed to strike girls everywhere, never mind that half the recipients of these gifts probably wouldn't know what to do with them. 

Of course, Anna was above all that. Not to mention, she was fairly certain that Yoh didn't even realise what Valentine's Day _was_, never mind White Day. With a final glare at the telelvision set (it played tinkling music back at her), she changed the channel five more times then finally turned it off. 

---------- 

"Yoh. Get dressed." 

Yoh looked up, surprised, to find Anna standing in the door. "What?" 

She looked pointedly at his shirt and raised an eyebrow. "I'm not going to a restaurant with you looking like _that_." 

"Ah?" 

"I made reservations at the Hisatomo for 7. Now get dressed." She said, tapping an impatient foot. 

"... We're going out for dinner?" It wasn't _Yoh's_ fault Anna never explained _what_ she was talking about before she started talking. 

Her dark eyes narrowed irritably... he scrambled to his feet hastily. "Okay, okay! But why..." He suddenly remembered that someone had given Manta chocolate at school today. 

The small boy had looked deeply embarassed even though no one was looking and muttered something about "sympathy chocolate" and "didn't have to just because I helped her with her Math". And then he'd been duly horrified when Yoh didn't seem to know what "Valentine" was. 

"... Ah?" He stopped, then turned to blink at Anna. 

"You're paying for it too." Anna added as she turned on her heel. "Now hurry up before they give our table away." 

... Well. At least it was a nice change from cooking, or eating Ryu's or Manta's, or whoever-it-was-Anna-had-intimidateded-into-the-kitchen's cooking... 

_end_


	3. Scar

**Scar**   
For Elysian 

Ren had lost quite enough dignity today - he was not quite ready to add "beating his head against the floor and screaming" to the list. He was close, though - largely stopped by the simple fact that he couldn't lift his head high enough to properly beat it against the floor it was resting on. 

Somewhere above him, Bason hovered worriedly... for one of the Tao family's strongest spirits, the boy thought sourly, Bason sometimes acted more like a a fussy _grandmother_ than the deadly warrior he was supposed to be. 

"I'm _fine_." He snarled through clenched teeth, more to make the spirit shut up and leave him alone than anything else. He considered trying to get up but the slightest twitch set his back on fire again - at least the stone floor beneath him was cold. Cold was good. 

A door swung open somewhere and footsteps reverberated so he could feel them against his cheek. Two sets, one light and brisk, the other heavier, more deliberate. 

He did not deign to look up as Jun's shadow fell over him, long and slim. "Can you get up?" 

"I don't need help." He muttered. 

The sound she made was almost a snort. "And what are you going to do? The wound Father gave you isn't going to kill you but if you just lie here all night, it _will_." 

He turned enough to look at the older girl, glaring. And would that be so bad? He nearly hissed at her. But she knew. Jun frowned, very slightly, and was silent. 

"So you'd rather let him kill you?" She asked quietly. 

In answer, he moved, slightly, arm moving back in an attempt to lever himself off the ground even as his back screamed - 

"Ren! Pailong, qui - " 

---------- 

When Ren woke, it was in his own bed. His back still hurt - but with the cold, stinging fire of some ointment, its stink filling his senses as he grimaced through the sudden light in his eyes. 

Jun sat in a chair by the window, reading a book by the dawn not-quite-light. She turned a page and looked at him. "You're up." 

A grunt was his only reply. She returned to her book. "The wound will scar - just as Father wanted it to. But other than that, it should be fine in a week." 

Fine. And branded forever as Tao En's, marked as weaker. Fine. "Did Father do it to you too?" He asked abruptly. 

She stopped in the middle of turning a page. "Not quite." A long pause, as she shut the book and added slowly. "It's on my back too. But the mark is smaller, because I'm only a girl." 

Ren fell silent. "I hate him." 

The sun shone through the window behind her, so that she was only a silhouette against the light as she looked at him. 

"I hate everything." He said grimly 

"I know." Standing, she walked around the bed to the door, shutting it quietly as she left. Only the faintest hint of her sadness lingered behind her. 

_end_


	4. Master

**Master**   
For Lex 

It is Mistress Lan who wakes him, summoning Bason from the funeral tablet he has lain sleeping in for so many years, he is almost surprised to find a woman standing before him instead of the young girl he remembers. 

"Mistress." Her lips curl into a feline smile he _does_ remember - some things have not changed after all - and she inclines her head gracefully as he kneels before her. 

"Bason." 

"The years have been kind to you; you have grown even more beautiful than I remember." He murmurs. 

She chuckles. "Thank you. But you must be wondering why we have summoned you again. We would not call you lightly; not the strongest of the Tao's spirits." 

"You flatter me." 

"I speak but the truth. It has been many years since you have served _one_ master, has it not?" 

The spirit looks up at that to meet her shadowed eyes, startled. Raising her fan, she nods, turning in a rustle of embroidered brocade. 

"Come." 

---------- 

Bason follows her through labyrinth halls until they reach a galley overlooking a large, empty room. They are the last to arrive; Master En and a young girl shadowed by a zombie are already there. 

"Jun, my daughter." Mistress Lan tells him as she gestures at the girl with her fan; the girl does not choose to acknowledge her mother's arrival. Bason thinks this rude, but then he sees her knuckles clenched white around the banister beneath her hands... 

Tracing the girl's fixed stare, he looks down into the room below. Not so empty after all. A small boy stands in its centre, holding a glaive much too large for him - it seems several times his height. He does not look at the people watching him from above, only stares straight ahead, hands holding his weapon before him. 

"My son. Tao Ren." 

And Bason understands why he has been summoned again after so long. 

The audience gathered, Master En gestures abruptly at the arena below. With a crash, doors are thrown open and three zombies file silently into the room to stand in a straight row before the boy. 

Against his will, Bason finds himself thinking that Tao Ren looks very, very young - and the zombies attack. 

They attack together, movements swift and perfectly coordinated, but the boy steps forward, the blade of his weapon flashing in a sweeping arc - the first zombie falls, neatly sliced in two. He brings his glaive around swiftly to meet a fist, drives the second zombie back even as the third strikes, sword drawing a thin line of blood along the boy's left arm. 

Spinning to meet the third, he slashes - the offending arm falls, sword clattering on the floor and the second blow scythes the zombie's legs out from under him so that he falls to the ground, helpless. Driving the blunt end of his glaive back, it slams through the zombie behind him in a spray of blood. 

The boy draws his weapon back, then carefully turns to finally behead the still twitching zombie before it can get up again. 

He draws a long, ragged breath, and it is the only sound in the room. Then his glaive hits the ground with a clang - Bason winces to see good weaponry so abused - and without a word, without having once looked up at his watching family, he leaves. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Bason sees Miss Jun lean over to rest her head on her clenched hands, then slowly pry them loose. She barely excues herself before leaving, the sound of her steps echoing loud and angry behind her. 

Mistress Lan lowers her fan and says, to no one in particular, "Very well done." Turning very slightly to Bason, her eyebrows rise. "Does he pass?" 

Bason must still himself before he feels ready to answer. Bowing deeply, something in his voice still trembles. Does he _pass_, they ask him? 

"You honour me." 

Master En grunts something that might almost be approval, as Mistress Lan laughs. Bason smiles too, for he has seen power and strength in the boy. And in the five centuries he has served the Taos through life and death, he has found no worthier master. 

_end_


	5. Chess

**Chess**   
For ng 

"Interesting." He said thoughtfully, studying the pieces spread before him. Picking up his last black knight, he spun the piece absently - then looked up to add, "Do you really need to keep glaring at me like that? It's quite distracting." 

Marco's glare grew, if anything, worse and he pushed his glasses up with a menacing glint. "Maiden-sama, I really _cannot_ understand why you let this..." 

"Now, Marco..." Jeanne interrupted. "It's just a game of chess." She smiled politely at Hao. "Please don't let him distract you. It's not that bad, really." 

"I suppose not." Hao agreed, finally setting his piece down with a light clack against the chequered board. "After all, it's not like I'm not used to people wanting to kill me." Looking back at Jeanne, he smiled disarmingly. "I'm quite surprised _you_ haven't tried to kill me yet, in fact. After all, the two of you do have me outnumbered." 

Jeanne looked shocked, then deeply wounded. "We would _never_ do something so despicable." She said disapprovingly. "That would be against our Justice." Picking up a pawn, she studied the board and made her move swiftly. 

"Ah... Justice." Hao watched his castle fall, and found himself contemplating a losing game - quite embarrassing, really, when you considered that he _was_ playing against a ten year old girl. 

Though then again, this _was_ only his second game of chess - and the first time he'd played had been... five hundred years ago? In Germany, if he recalled correctly. Interesting, how some things hadn't changed, five hundred years later, two continents away. Human nature. The Shaman Fight. Chess. 

Marco, who had turned an amusing shade of purple at Hao's suggestion of treachary, eyed the game and looked _slightly_ mollified. 

Hao made another move - rather recklessly, this time, more to see what it would do than in any attempt to salvage the game. Jeanne watched, unperturbed, as he took her knight and looked at her, eyebrows raised. "Not a concept I have much faith in." 

"You wouldn't, would you?" She murmured, and finally took his queen. She smiled. "Checkmate. That's why you can't win the Shaman Fight." 

"Nicely done." Hao complimented and smiled in a way that made Marco stop the ridiculous posing the X-Laws seemed so terribly fond of and reach for his weapon. "I admit that tactics aren't really my strong point, but the Shaman Fight isn't about tactics, you know." 

"Justice _will_ prevail." Jeanne said with the iron calm he supposed had earned her her name. 

He gave a board a last glance and stood. "I guess that will have to depend on our next meeting, won't it? In the ring. I trust it'll have a very different outcome from today." 

Marco snarled and drew his weapon then; Jeanne barely stopped him with a frown. Ignoring the small ruckus, Hao smiled and left. 

Chess, life, war. 

In the end, it was only a question of power. 

_end_


	6. Matamune

**Matamune**   
For Lily   
Note: Spoilers/won't make sense if you don't know who Matamune is. 

Under his watchful gaze, the servants carefully lowered the tiny coffin into the hole; filling it with dirt until the grave was just a bare hump of earth. At his nod, they left, thankful to finally be able to get out of the winter cold (grumbling, where they thouht he couldn't hear them, about the fuss he was making over a dead _cat_). 

Hao barely watched them leave, only waited long enough until he was sure he was alone. He stared down at the unmarked grave. 

Death. 

His breath came out as a pale mist in the icy air, a silent whisper, and then /he/ was there, his spirit shining pale and translucent in the early morning light. 

Matamune crossed the hard, frozen ground to rub, purring, against the hem of his robes, and it felt like he'd never left - his presence was so strong. Hao let out a breath; it sounded like a sigh. "I've missed you, my friend." 

The cat gave a chuckling purr and he laughed. "And it's been less than a day, too." 

He offered a hand and Matamune leaped lightly into his arms - the spirit too insubstantial to be a weight, but he cradled him arm around the shape and the cat curled against him, his spirit a warm comfort in his mind. 

His free hand reached into the depths of a sleeve to draw a necklace, leather and black stones like fangs, out. It swung from his hand with a faint click of stone against stone while he held it out for Matamune to see. It looked rough and plain, really, but he did not think the cat would like gaudy jewels any more than he would. 

"It's not much, is it?" He said and chuckled as the spirit gave him a disapproving stare. It leaped out of his arms - then turned, waiting. Kneeling, he let the necklace fall so that it seemed to hang around Matamune's neck 

A breath, and he released it, so that it swung wildly as the cat stretched, long and lazily. Looked up and smiled, baring small, sharp teeth. 

Carefully, Matamune crouched and, to Hao's surprise, stood back on his hind legs - an Oversoul's form was shaped by the shaman would made it, but Matamune seemed to be bending his form around _his_ own will - Hao had not thought he could take such a human shape so quickly. 

He yawned, widely, and and looked up at the onmyouji. The sound he made, then, was half pur, half voice. 

"Haaaaaooooo." 

---------- 

The winter night was cold around him, despite the heat of the fire he sat by and the Spirit of Fire beside him. Tilting his head back, Hao looked up at the sky, cloudless and black. 

A shaman places a part of himself into every Oversoul he makes - the stronger the oversoul, the stronger the bond. Faint, but clear, Hao felt a remnant of power return to him from a very, very old oversoul. 

Matamune. 

"What have you done?" He wondered out loud. There was no answer - the Spirit of Fire wasn't much for conversation and up in these mountains, who else could he talk to? "I guess this means you won't be facing me this time, then." He murmured and almost smiled. 

Around him, the night grew ever colder. 

_end_


	7. Elements

**Elements**

When Yoh thinks of Anna, he thinks of stone – cold, unyielding, hard. You would only hurt yourself trying to break her. 

Yoh knows this, so he doesn't try. He also knows that she can't help it so he lets it be, even though dealing with Anna is always a risky business. 

Like stone, Anna is rough - he has the scars to prove it. 

Scabs, bruises, an aching foot from having a sandaled foot stomped on it. Maybe if he gets enough scars, he'll learn not to bleed. 

He knows he won't. He can't help the way he is either, and Anna knows this. 

Deep in the woods around the house there's a spring of sweet, clear water running down moss and pebbles. The stones, when he absently grazes his knuckles on them drinking, are cool, hard - smooth, sharp edges washed away by ever-flowing time and water. 

Anna has her kindnesses too. Looks she thinks no one sees, fleeting half-smiles, small things she's slowly learned over their years together. 

Water flowing over stone always leaves its mark. 

_end_


	8. Umbrella

**Umbrella**   
For: Meemee

Yoh was halfway to the store when it started to rain.   
  
It barely deigned to announce its coming with a drizzle before the clouds emptied themselves with a roar, splashing into puddles on the pavement, shrouding the world in grey damp. It trickled through the scant shelter of the tree Yoh stood under to drip fat, heavy drops on his head and down his neck.  
  
He stared at the rain, glum, and wondered why it couldn't have waited just those twenty minutes it would have taken for him to get to the store, get stuff for dinner, and get home. Hunching his shoulders against the cold, while he rubbed at the back of his neck, he sighed.   
  
It didn't look like it was going to stop anytime soon - he supposed he could wait for it to stop, or grow lighter, but then dinner would be late and Anna would probably make him run ten rounds around the neighbourhood in penance. Or he could walk in the rain, get soaked, freeze in the supermarket's air conditioning, then walk back...  
  
Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, so to speak, he shoved his hands in his pockets to watch the weather some more. Maybe it'd clear. Maybe it'd start raining cats and dogs instead of water. Right. Maybe.  
  
The minutes ticked slowly past and Yoh grew steadily wetter, colder, and more resigned to his doom. He was soaked anyway - he might as well get this over with and save himself Anna's irritation.   
  
Stepping out into the downpour's full force, the rain plastered his hair flat on his head. Pushing the heavy, wet strands out of his eyes, he started walking, the reluctant trudge of someone who just wanted to turn around and go _home_...  
  
Something hit the back of his head with a loud, painful thud. Yoh yelped, stumbled, and nearly fell face first into the street. Turned to face his attacker and stopped, mouth falling open.  
  
Anna, dressed in the bright yellow raincoat he'd last seen her wear during his fight with Faust, stalked down the street towards him. She nodded at the puddle at his feet.   
  
"Well? Pick it up." She ordered.  
  
Obedient as always, he bent to pick it up before he even thought to look at whatever it was she'd thrown at him. He blinked, even as his hands unfolded and opened the umbrella before his startled mind could interfere in the process.  
  
"An... umbrella?"  
  
"It's raining." She pointed out, irritated, as if he had yet to notice the fact. "And don't just stand there - you're wet."  
  
"Ah..." Sheepish, he swung it over his head. "You brought an umbrella for me?" He asked, brain still trying to register the thought of Anna. Coming out in the RAIN. To bring him an _umbrella_.  
  
"The rain was heavy." She snapped, stepping under the shelter of the umbrella, beside him. "Now, come on." They set off for the supermarket together.  
  
"... I could have walked in the rain..." Yoh pointed out. "I'm wet anyway."  
  
"You'll get sick." She gave him a sharp look. "I'm not letting you off training if you get the flu." She warned.  
  
"Ahaha..." Well of course.   
  
They walked on in silence. Her hand brushed his, then caught it with firm fingers. His hair was dripping, and his T-shirt was still wet, and the air was still chilly, but under the umbrella with her, Yoh didn't notice.

_end_


	9. Music

**Music**   
For: Eve   
Warning: Would not work if you've never heard of Funbari no Uta/Hana

You could have heard the yell all over Tokyo.  
  
"BOB RETIRED?!!!"  
  
"Yes he did. Three years ago. Stop kicking up such a fuss about it, the world isn't going to end just because your favourite singer isn't singing anymore."  
  
Curious, Hana peered into the kitchen to see his father (still trying to get used to idea of having one) gaping in undisguised horror at his mother while she, all cool indifference, read the morning paper.   
  
"But... but... it's BOB! He can't retire! He just... can't!"  
  
Mother looked up at the frying pan on the stove. "Breakfast is burning." She pointed out.  
  
Father removed it without even turning to look at what he was doing, then stood there just holding it and looking like the world had ended. "But... but..."  
  
"Even if he hadn't retired, he'll die sooner or later. Your _father_ was listening to him when he was your age. Stop being an idiot." Mother said ruthlessly. "And hurry up with breakfast, I'm not waiting all morning. Hana, don't just stand there staring. Come in and sit down."  
  
Hana jumped, then shuffled in to sit beside her. Watched as his father dumped a place of pancakes on the table, still looked shell shocked.   
  
"... Who's Bob?" He ventured to ask his mother.  
  
Father turned very, very slowly to stare at him. "You don't know who Bob is?"   
  
Hana blinked. "I've never heard of him." He said.  
  
Father turned to Mother. "Anna! How could he not know who Bob IS?"   
  
"Hana was three years old when Bob retired." She pointed out. "Stop kicking up such a fuss and sit down - Yoh!"  
  
"You can't NOT know who Bob is!" Before Hana knew what was happening, his father had him by the shirt and was dragging him out of the kitchen. "He's the best! I'll show you!"  
  
He didn't let go of his bemused son until they were in the main bedroom, where he released the boy to frown and stare around him. "Wait, where are my old...?"   
  
"In the left cupboard, on the top shelf." Mother stood in the door, eyeing them in the mixture of exasperation and resignation she so often wore when looking at Father.   
  
Hana watched as he threw the door open with a bang and lifted a heavy box down from the shelf, setting it before the small boy with an almost ceremonious thump. Lifting the dusty lid, he drew an ancient pair of huge orange headphones from the box.   
  
Blinked at it. Then, leaning over, he slung them about Hana's shoulders and grinned at him. "You can have them now." He said, and returned to rifling through the stack of CDs and MDs filling the box while Hana blinked and lifted the heavy headphones to stare at them.  
  
Father piled a small stack of MDs so new they were still in their plastic wrappers on the floor and looked up.  
  
"His last 3 albums." Mother said. "There were seven best-of compilations after that, but those were just cheap marketing gimmicks." She added with a disdainful sniff.   
  
"Bob is never cheap!" But the grin he gave her was wide and dazzling in its brilliance anyway.  
  
"Here, this one!" He got up to drag an old CD player out of the cupboard, then shoved the CD in and switched it on. "It's his best song!"  
  
Chin propped on his knees, headphones hanging heavy (a comforting weight) around his neck, Hana stared at the CD player.  
  
_I'm Bob, I had a dream  
One morning, at the usual crossroads  
  
You and I Far away in space  
Becoming the rings of Saturn  
Dance!  
  
Dodge the meteorites  
Be careful with your breath  
Until we can breathe again  
  
The one I fell in love with  
Isn't you  
I'm loving  
Boblove  
Say one thing for me  
Boblove  
Here is the Pure Land paradise  
Boblove  
After all, Boblove is excellent..._  
  
Hana eyed his father as the song came to a halt. "... It's a funny song..." He mumbled.  
  
Father waved the CD wildly at him. "Of course it isn't! It's great! Come on, I'll play it again and you can sing along! I'll teach you the words!"  
  
"Breakfast is getting cold." Mother pointed out but the song was playing again, and Father was singing, loudly and not always tunefully, as he beat time in the air with a CD. Hana found himself grinning too - the song _was_ kind of catchy, he thought, even if the words were funny and weird to sing...  
  
"Anna, you sing along too!"  
  
She huffed at the invitation; stood, arms folded, and watched them sing together. Maybe she even smiled.  
  
_You and I Far away in space  
Becoming the rings of Saturn  
Dance!_

_end_


	10. Saved

** Saved**   
For Michi 

It wasn't every day you opened the door to find Death standing on your doorstep smiling at you. Tamao froze. Hao's smile grew, if anything, _wider_.  
  
"Ah, Tamao! Good morning."  
  
"Ah... ah... Hao-san...?"  
  
"It's been a while, hasn't it? You've grown even prettier since I last saw you." He beamed.  
  
Tamao nearly fell over. She gripped the door and considered slamming it shut - but that would probably make him angry, and be a really bad idea - but she didn't want to let go either, he'd come _in_!  
  
Manners won out by a very thin margin. "... What.. do you... want?"  
  
"Oh? I was just out for a walk and thought I'd drop by for a visit. And it's always lovely to see you. Aren't you going to ask me in?"  
  
NO! "Ah... Anna-sama will..."  
  
"Be very angry? I daresay she will." He agreed. "Where is the lovely Anna? I should think she'd have come to see why you're taking so long to answer the door by now, along with my brother."  
  
"They're out training." She said before realising that telling him that might not have been such a good idea - and that there was no one here to... to do _anything_! if _he_ decided to... her mind refused to think beyond this point. Her knees threatened to go on strike. She gripped the door harder and tried to think What Would Anna Do.  
  
Slap him, slam the door shut and summon her shikigami if that didn't work. Right... Well, what would _Yoh_ do? Ask him in?  
  
"Ah... they won't be... back until lunch. You could come back... later?"  
  
He glanced past her into the hall beyond. "Oh, that won't be necessary." He said.  
  
"HAAAOOO-SAAMAMAAA!!!"  
  
Something small, black and moving at something approaching the velocity of a speeding bullet shot past Tamao to skid to a stop before Hao.   
  
"Opacho." He greeted, with a smile that _did_ seem to reach his eyes, as if he meant it.  
  
"Hao-sama came! Hao-sama came~! To see Opacho?"  
  
"Yes, of course. I had to see how you were doing. So how is Opacho?"   
  
Tamao inched away from the door. Busy beaming at Opacho while the small child chattered happily at him, Hao didn't notice.   
  
"Opacho is fine! Opacho is working very hard at the favour Hao-sama asked Opacho to do!"  
  
"That's good to hear. And how are my brother and his friends treating you? They aren't giving you any trouble?"  
  
"One of them wanted to take Opacho hostage to scare Hao-sama! But Opacho is doing Hao-sama a favour! Opacho will not let them use Opacho to hurt Hao-sama!"  
  
"I know you won't, that's why I asked the favour specially of you!"  
  
"Hao-sama love~"  
  
"Opacho, I love you too."  
  
Tamao stared from around the corner of the hall, before removing herself from sight and sinking to her knees on the floor. The next time the others left her here alone, she decided, she was definitely checking the door before she opened it. And making sure that Opacho stayed behind with her...

_end_


	11. The First Goodbye

**The First Goodbye**   
For Tin 

He feels the cold bite through his bare skin, into his bones, terrible and merciless, but it is secondary, unimportant beside the cold that is Matamune's leaving, the leaking away of the warmth of his spirit. Yoh feels his knees give way and stumbles into the snow, but he does not let go of the necklace. Matamune's necklace, his fingers curled so tight around it, it seems that he had forgtten how to let go. 

Come back, he wants to say but he knows that Matamune won't, can't, that he is not strong enough to say the words and make them come true. So he is silent, even as he hears, over and over again. 

Goodbye. 

Always know what you have to do. 

Protect her. 

Above the howling of the wind comes the sound of footsteps crunching through the snow. The torn remnants of the coat are draped on his shoulders, though it is scant protection against the cold. He does not look up but he knows she is there, beside him, watching him. 

She said she loved him. 

The words are almost more than he can grasp. 

She does not speak, and he cannot, so they become a counterpoint of silence to the storm raging around them. He takes a breath and the cold burns him, but nothing burns like the reaching out and finding Matamune not there - have they only been friends for three days? It feels like so much more. He has promises to keep, he knows, and he must stand and walk and face them. And one day he will call Matamune back. 

But for now, he can't, he can only huddle in the snow, almost shaking, and let it go. Feel his own tears turn to ice on his cheeks. Feel her beside him, watching. 

The first goodbye is the hardest. 

Everything ends here, and begins here. The moment stays with them forever, etched in the wind and snow, the knowing that she is beside him in this time and place and it is as much a promise as anything else. It is eternity. 

Goodbye. 

_end_

December 2003 


	12. Cold Fire

**cold fire**   
For Michi 

; 

He didn't know why he made her the offer. It wasn't like he had any intention of keeping it, any more than she had of accepting. 

"I could give you an easy life," he'd pointed out and Anna looked at him like something beneath her notice (but not quite. She couldn't ignore him, and he found a certain smug satisfaction in using this). 

"Not by my standards," she told him with a contemptuous sniff, and turned to stalk away. 

"I might even spare his life. For you," he suggested, leaning in close before she could take the first step. 

She spun then, whiplash movement, and her hand struck his cheek the split second before he caught it. 

Oh yes, he remembered now why he'd said that. 

"You're cute when you're mad," he told her and she bared her teeth at him. 

She was one of the very few who could challenge him like this and not die in the attempt, but even she couldn't get away with it. He had his standards, after all. 

So he pulled her close and kissed her. 

One hand reached up to tangle in her hair without his thinking about it, before she could twist away. Her clenched teeth were hard behind her thin, angry lips as she fought him. His hand loosed her hair to slide down to her waist and he could feel the snarl in her throat just before she shifted and very suddenly kissed him back. 

She kissed him like she did everything else - hard and fierce, with distinctly homicidal overtones thrown in for good measure. It was... interesting, and he was all for enjoying this sudden turn of events for as long as it lasted before she tried to kill him again. 

It came rather sooner than he expected. 

One hand reached up to grab the front of his cloak. She broke the kiss and his guard went up even as her left fist caught him under the chin with a hard, painful crack. Releasing him, she whipped her rosary over her head, and her shikigami rose on either side of him. 

He considered summoning the Spirit of Fire, but looked at her black stone eyes and decided, well, he could concede the point for today. Gravel ground under her heel as she deliberately turned her back on him and walked away. 

He rubbed his aching jaw, watching her, and smiled. 

(And he was probably a better kisser too.) 

_end_

November 2004 


	13. Morning

**Morning  
**For Meg/Suppi-chan

Notes: Funbari no Uta universe

* * *

Sunlight in his eyes. Grass on the back of his neck. The smell of woodsmoke scratching his throat. The pipping and screeching of birds. Crickets whining.

Yoh tries to turn over and bury his face under a pillow before he realises that there isn't one. He wraps his arms around his head instead with an unhappy mumble.

But the world, having wormed its way into his consciousness, isn't letting go now. He gives up, in the end, throws his arms out and yawns. He squints up at the sunlight falling bright through the trees overhead and closes his eyes again. It's much, much too bright.

He was dreaming. What was he dreaming?

Footsteps rustle through the grass, and a shadow falls over his face.

"You're awake."

A woman's voice. He opens his eyes again; her hair is pale, gold in the morning light, her eyes stern, her mouth disapproving.

"Anna," he says, surprised. His voice comes out strange - rusty from disuse, deeper than it should be. He flails to sit up and his arms and legs are longer and heavier than he remembers them being; his hair straggles down his back and into his eyes. He looks down at himself, up at her.

Ah. She's older too.

A trickle of a memory, of a dream: light, endless and colourless and featureless, all around him, in a place with no time or end.

He wriggles his fingers and looks at his unfamiliar, suddenly too bony hands.

"How long?" he asks.

"Six years," she tells him.

He blinks. "That was longer than I expected."

"You took your time," she says, and he half expects a slap. Instead, she watches him. He stares back at her; her eyes are very dark. "Where is he?"

He blinks. "He. Oh. Hao?" He looks at the forest around them, the small fire burning in the middle of the clearing, and feels his vision shift, disconnect from the world he has so recently returned to. It settles back in place, and he blinks. Something inside him has searched and not known - quite - where to look. But if he thinks, if he reaches - here -

His hands open and close, then open again and come to rest on his chest. "He's here," he says, eyes shut. For a moment, the timbre of his voice takes the note of a different man (one who'd worn his absolute faith in his world like a cloak, one they know maybe too well).

Yoh opens his eyes and looks up at Anna. Her face is impassive.

"Is that so," she says. She turns to the fire, the beads around her neck clacking against each other. "Come to breakfast," she tells him.

She has fish from the river; Yoh wonders how she caught them, but doesn't ask. She guts them with a knife, leaving their insides shining red beside her, then skewers them by the fire. The smell makes his stomach rumble and he tries to eat his too soon.

"Ouagh!" he manages, sticking his burnt tongue out.

"Idiot," she scoffs, unsympathetic.

He knows this very well indeed, even if he does not know where they are, or what has happened to the world while he was gone.

"What would you have done if Hao had come back?" he asks, suddenly, mouth full of fish.

She spits out a bone. "Killed him," she says.

"Oh. Even if I was with him?" The way Hao was with Yoh now, in every beat of their heart, the places in their souls where they'd met and never been able to leave? He knows she would have. "That's cold," he says, mournful.

"Don't be foolish," Anna says. "I knew you would come back."

"So I must be the Shaman King now," he says.

"It's about time you kept your promise," she says.

"You've been waiting for a long time," he agrees, and drops the remains of the fish bones into the fire.

A bird wings through the sky, high above the trees. He watches the light fall through the leaves, green-gold and unpredictable, feels the world turn beneath him, shrugs into his still-strange skin and bones. Standing, he stretches and yawns again.

"It's good to be back," he grins.

Anna humphs and throws the pack at him. He staggers at its weight, then slings it over his shoulder. She looks at him for a moment, her gaze long and clear and steady. Reaching out, he touches her face.

"I missed you," he says, simply.

"Of course you did," she says. She wraps a hand around his wrist. "Come. They're waiting for us."

"Where are we going?" he asks.

She smiles. Yoh can count the number of times he's seen Anna smile on his fingers; but he knows her smile too, even better than he knows his own.

"Where else?"

Ah. Home.

_end_

September 2005


End file.
